Adopt ISO syntax for logarithmic functions

Issue #381 closed
Samuli created an issue

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 381

Denoting base 2 logarithm as "lg" is very confusing to me. It seems that only computer
scientist denote it by "lg" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm
) but the ISO notation is "lb". 

For me, lg stands for base 10 logarithm.

Also, I'd like to see log10 and log2 found in other professional software (e.g. MATLAB,
octave,numpy ) 

So ISO defines three logarithms: lb (base 2),lg (base 10) and ln (base e). 

What should "log" be then? Most people expect it to be base e or base 10 logarithm
but the choice is hard between these two. Most programming languages and professional
programs (e.g. MATLAB) denote the natural logarithm as "log" but it still not so clear.

One possibility would to have two parameters for log, the other being the base.

Reported by ssalonen on 2011-07-01 15:56:25

Comments (5)

  1. Former user Account Deleted
    Fixed in revision aa268a4e - log will be later implemented as log(base, x) - see issue
    486.
    

    Reported by helder.pereira.correia on 2014-03-04 00:32:27 - Status changed: Fixed - Labels added: Type-Defect, Milestone-0.12

  2. Former user Account Deleted
    Issue 546 has been merged into this issue.
    

    Reported by helder.pereira.correia on 2015-01-20 13:22:46

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